The February 1, 2003 was the foreseen Landing Date of Columbia Mission's STS-117.
It has never landed, and for this reason this page is a modest homage to the
wonderful and exceptional people which the mankind has lost in this terrible
disaster.
8:15 a.m. EST -- Columbia fires braking rockets, streaks
toward a planned touchdown at Kennedy Space Center, Runway 33.

8:53 a.m. -- NASA loses temperature measurements for the shuttle's left hydraulic
system.
8:58 a.m. -- NASA loses measurements from three temperature sensors
on the shuttle's left side.
8:59 a.m. -- Eight more temperature measures and pressure measures
for left inboard and outboard tires are lost. Crew is able to acknowledge
remaining visible measurement on display panel. In response to request for
tire pressure status, Columbia replies: "Roger, uh, ...." This is
the final transmission from the crew.
9 a.m. -- Mission Control suddenly loses all data and voice contact
with Columbia 207,135 feet above north central Texas, traveling at 12,500
mph. Residents of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana report hearing a "big
bang" and seeing flames in the sky.

Columbia
Commander Col. Rick Husband
Commander Rick Husband, 45, was an Air Force colonel from Amarillo,
Texas. The former test pilot was selected as an astronaut in 1994 on his fourth
try. He made up his mind as a child that that was what he was going to do
with his life.
"It's been pretty much a lifelong dream and just a thrill
to be able to get to actually live it out," the married father of two
said in an interview before Columbia's launch, his second spaceflight.

Shuttle Pilot Cmdr. William McCool
Pilot William McCool, 41, was a Navy commander who grew up in
Lubbock, Texas. He graduated second in his 1983 class at the Naval Academy,
went on to test pilot school and became an astronaut in 1996.
McCool was an experienced Navy pilot with more than 2,800 hours
in flight. But two weeks into his first space trip, he was bursting with amazement.
"There is so much more than what I ever expected,"
McCool told National Public Radio on Jan. 30 from the space shuttle Columbia.
"It's beyond imagination, until you actually get up and see it and experience
it and feel it."
McCool was married with three sons, ages 14, 19 and 22.

Shuttle Payload Commander Lt. Col. Michael Anderson
Payload commander Michael Anderson, 43, was the son of an Air
Force man and grew up on military bases. He was flying for the Air Force when
NASA chose him in 1994 as one of only a handful of black astronauts. He traveled
to Russia's Mir space station in 1998.
The lieutenant colonel, who lived in Spokane, Wash., was in charge
of Columbia's dozens of science experiments.
"I take the risk because I think what we're doing is really
important. If you look at this research flight and if you really take an opportunity
to look at each experiment ... the potential yield that we have is really
tremendous," he said.
He added: "For me, it's the fact that what I'm doing can
have great consequences and great benefits for everyone, for mankind."

Shuttle
Columbia Engineer Dr. Kapana Chawla
Kalpana Chawla, 41, emigrated to the United States from India
in 1980s and became an astronaut in 1994. At the time, she wanted to design
aircraft -- the space program was the furthest thing from her mind.
"That would be too far-fetched," the engineer had said.
But "one thing led to another" and she was chosen as an astronaut
after working at NASA's Ames Research Center and Overset Methods Inc. in Northern
California.
Chawla was a heroine in India, which has launched satellites
for years and is preparing for a moon orbit this decade. One Indian news agency
even tracked Columbia's flight so it could tell readers the exact minute they
could wave to the skies to hail their countrywoman.
"When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that
you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system,"
Chawla said in a 1998 interview with the newspaper India Today.

Shuttle Columbia Pilot Capt. David Brown
David Brown, 46, was a Navy captain, pilot and doctor. He joined
the Navy after a medical internship, then went on to fly the A-6E Intruder
and F-18. He became an astronaut in 1996. Columbia's mission was his first
spaceflight.
When asked in a recent interview about the risk of flying in
space, Brown, who was single, said: "I made a decision that is part of
my job, I would incur some real risk as a routine part of my job when I joined
the Navy and started flying ... airplanes off of ships, particularly airplanes
off of ships at night. And I think that was a decision that I made some years
ago and the decision to go fly in space is just an extension of that."

Shuttle Columbia Physician Cmdr. Dr. Laurel Clark
Laurel Clark, 41, was a diving medical officer aboard submarines
and then a flight surgeon before she became an astronaut in 1996. She had
been on board Columbia to help with science experiments.
"I think my family has a fairly practical and pragmatic
view of this whole thing, and that's that the actual launching into space
is much more dangerous than any of the other security concerns," said
Clark, who lived in Racine, Wis., and was married with an 8-year-old son.
She added: "There's a lot of different things that we do
during life that could potentially harm us and I choose not to stop doing
those things."

Shuttle
Columbia Payload Specialist Col. Ilan Ramon
Ilan Ramon, 48, was a colonel in Israel's air force and the first
Israeli in space. His mother and grandmother survived the Auschwitz death
camps, and his father fought for Israel's statehood alongside his grandfather.
Ramon fought in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and Lebanon War in 1982.
He served as a fighter pilot in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s,
flying F-16s and F-4s. He was chosen as Israel's first astronaut in 1997,
then moved to Houston the next year to train for shuttle flight.
His wife, Rona, and their four children -- ages 5 to 15 -- live
in Tel Aviv.
Before Columbia launched, Ramon had repeatedly said he was not
nervous or afraid about his safety aboard the space shuttle.
"I think the only thing that will worry me is the launch
sequence and the systems and the launch, being launched on time. The tenseness
is there because everybody wants to be launched on time with no failures.
That's it. Once you're there, you're there," he said in a recent interview.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77254,00.html

Highly
impressed by this tragedy, the SNA has decided to issue a sheet in the honor
of disappeared cosmonauts. The commemorative minisheet was issued on the 2nd
of February 2003, a day after the catastrophe. The only issued piece will
be exposed at a later time in the Postal Museum.

Please click on the sheet for a more detailed image.

Note. At present we haven't images of Columbia's explosion, and for this reason
we show above as remembrance images of the 1986 Challenger's disaster.